Marine Antibiotics
A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2012) | Viewed by 115273
Special Issue Editor
Interests: streptomycetes; rare actinomycetes; antibiotics; secondary metabolite biosynthesis; engineering of biosynthetic pathways
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Since the official discovery of the first antibiotic (penicillin), by Alexander Fleming in 1928, thousands of structurally diverse antibiotics have been reported from a variety of natural sources. Today, antibiotics continue to play the most important role in fighting various types of infections and saving millions of lives every year. However, rapid development of antibiotic resistance by bacterial and fungal pathogens, very limited supply of antiviral and antihelminthic antibiotics, and Big Pharma’s focusing mainly on chronic diseases and cancer represent a formidable challenge for anti-infective therapy of the future.
The absolute majority of currently used antibiotics have been isolated from terrestrial sources, and numerous attempts on terrestrial bioprospecting in the recent years mainly resulted in re-discovery of known antibiotics or their close analogues. Recent data strongly suggest that marine environment represents an untapped source for new biologically active molecules, in particular antibiotics. In this respect, marine bacteria and fungi seem to be the most prominent sources for antibiotic discovery due to their diversity and ability to grow rapidly and sustainably in bioreactors. Other sources, like sponges, corals and other marine animals, can also supply very interesting scaffolds for antibiotic discovery, which can be reproduced through chemical synthesis. Finally, metagenome libraries prepared from diverse marine samples and giving access to the genetic material from unculturable species may also supply new antibiotics.
This special issue of Marine Drugs is dedicated to marine antibiotics, and will be assembled to emphasize the importance of new antibiotic discovery from marine sources by various techniques and from a variety of organisms. I am very happy and honored to serve as a Guest Editor for this special issue, and would like to invite scientists to report their findings or review the recent literature on various aspects of marine antibiotics. I hope that this special issue will encourage other scientists to work on the important topic of the marine antibiotic discovery, and to report their findings in the future issues of Marine Drugs.
Prof. Dr. Sergey B. Zotchev
Guest Editor
Keywords
- antibiotic
- marine organisms
- biosynthesis
- chemical synthesis
- antibiotic resistance
- antibiotic modification
- metagenome
- antiviral
- antibacterial
- antifungal
- antihelminthic
